Legally-binding indemnity crucial – skippers warned

THINKNG ABOUT taking your friends or family for a day of fishing on your boat? If so then ask them to sign a properly-worded, legally-binding indemnity before they board your boat, advises Allan Heydorn of Shepstone & Wylie’s litigation department. Giving an example of just how wrong things can go, he describes how two friends have spent years fishing together off a ski-boat belonging to one of the men. Neither are men of means but remain passionate about their fishing. However, one fateful day one of the motors fails just as the boat is negotiating the surf and the boat capsizes, with one man being seriously injured. Because of his injuries he won’t be able to practise his trade but fortunately he has disability cover which is honoured by his assurers. But even without cover the last thing he would do, even without cover, would be to institute legal action against his friend, the boat-owner, despite the accident having been the result of his friend’s negligence. Unfortunately the assurers see things differently. They investigate the cause of the engine failure and find that the owner was negligent in that he had not had the motors serviced by a qualified outboard technician for many years. Through the doctrine of subrogation, the assurers step into the injured party’s shoes and institute action against the owner for the recovery of the amount they have paid in terms of the policy. The injured man cannot even prevent his assurers from pursuing the matter as contractually the policy allows them to do so.